military honors

Florida Today is reporting that 93 year old Gordon Courchene of Sebastian Florida was riding his Yamaha scooter Tuesday afternoon January 4th, when he struck the rear of a stopped van in the retirement community of Barefoot Bay Florida. The report says Courchene was revived at the scene and flown to a hospital in Melbourne where he later died.

A veteran of World War II, Courchene was one of the first soldiers to land on the island of New Guinea, where Allied forces fought the Japanese until the war ended in 1945. Courchene told FLORIDA TODAY in 2005 that he was wounded as he worked on a tower during the military campaign in the South Pacific.

Funeral services with full military honors will be held but arrangements are not complete at this time.